No one is laughing at Emmanuel Adebayor now. Not a snigger, a chuckle or a giggle.

The howling around north London could be heard for miles last September when the Togo striker insisted he could yet end the season as top dog ahead of £26million Spain striker Roberto Soldado.

Now, however, it is Adebayor who is having the last laugh as he spearheads Tottenham’s refusal to lie down in what is turning out to be a ferocious battle for next season’s Champions League.

The forward’s winner was his seventh in 12 for the White Hart Lane club too after being brought in from the cold by Andre Villas-Boas’ successor, Tim Sherwood.

Not only that, Adebayor’s work-rate, industry and all-round performance against the Toffees were outstanding.

Sherwood rejected the chance to sign Bulgarian Dimitar Berbatov last month because he did not want Adebayor to feel that he had lost the trust of yet another manager.

Adebayor has responded by continuing the Spurs resurgence that could yet end with ­Sherwood keeping the job even longer than his 18-month contract.

Beaten by Arsenal, battered by Liverpool, slaughtered twice by Manchester City and held at Goodison, Spurs have had a tough time of it against the bigger teams in the league this season.

Since taking over from AVB, however, Sherwood has won at Manchester United and this victory has lifted Spurs above Everton as the main challengers to Liverpool in the race for fourth place.

Some fans keep suggesting the Spurs boss is too naive and want to see a Van Gaal or a Maldini (Cesare not Paolo) take over in the summer.

But Sherwood is doing a fine man-management job in restoring confidence and ­galvanising a team’s ambitions that looked shot to pieces when AVB left.

Adebayor said: “It’s not about scoring, but winning the game and I am pleased for the team that we have won again – it’s very good for the confidence. It’s an important result at home. I know, and the fans know, how we have been struggling at home and we wanted the three points.

“We want to win 3-0 for them, but at the moment it is not going our way and we have to keep working hard, enjoying football in training and improve every day and we will have a chance to win a lot of games.”

Adebayor’s finish was outstanding.

Kyle Walker found him on the left side of the box before he held off a challenge and powered his effort low into the bottom corner to leave keeper Tim Howard with no chance.

Soldado remained on the bench as Jermain Defoe came on near the end to get the credit he deserved in his final home Premier League game before leaving for Toronto later this month.

But it was Tottenham as a team who also deserved credit for standing up to a ferocious onslaught from Roberto ­Martinez’s Everton side who will surely not fade away quietly from top-four contention.

A draw would have been no good to either side, truth be told. But Everton should have had a penalty in the dying minutes when Etienne Capoue hacked down Seamus Coleman.

Referee Mark Clattenburg waved the claim away to the fury of the Toffees dugout. When Martinez’s anger had died down, however, he insisted that the race for fourth was not over.

“That was a performance that tells us a lot,” he said, “We know we can go anywhere, be ourselves and be the better side.

“We’re fighting against ourselves. To perform in that manner and not get the result is something we have to look at. If we had played the game 10 times we would have won eight.

“With 18 games left there are a lot of points to play for and it’s developing into the most exciting Premier League season ever.”